The present invention relates to food preparation tables and more particularly to such tables including at least one refrigerated storage compartment beneath the food preparation surface and condiment pans disposed adjacent the food preparation surface.
As the ingredient foodstuff items in the condiment pans may be present in the pans for many hours before being used by the food service worker who is preparing the desired prepared foodstuff, such as pizza or sandwiches, it becomes desirable to keep the ingredient foodstuffs refrigerated at temperatures between 32.degree. and 40.degree. F. Since the ingredient foodstuffs in the condiment pans must be readily available to the food preparer, the condiment pans are not sufficiently accessible if they are enclosed in a refrigerated compartment having a door which must be opened to gain access to the ingredient foodstuffs and closed to keep the ingredient foodstuffs sufficiently cold.
Devices which rely on cold wall refrigeration enclosures for cooling the condiment pans are prone to produce undesirable temperature gradients in the condiment pans. These gradients cause portions of the foodstuffs to become frozen in order to keep other portions of the foodstuffs at acceptable cooling temperatures.
A number of devices use forced cool air circulation beneath the space occupied by the condiment pans. Examples of such devices are described in U.S. Pat. No. 4,802,340 to Johnson; U.S. Pat. No. 4,457,140 to Rastelli; and U.S. Pat. No. 2,886,395 to Cahn. However, recently the National Sanitation Foundation has promulgated a very strict performance standard for certification of food preparation tables. In an attempt to meet these new standards, one device shown in U.S. Pat. No. 4,685,311 to Rastelli forces cool air from the evaporator to a position well above the open tops of the pans and releases the cooled air to drop down vertically onto the upper surface of the food stored in the pans. However, the movement of cooled air over such long distances is inefficient, as is the cooling of the air space above the pans and the collection of the air for return to the evaporator. Moreover, forced air systems can suffer erratic temperature gradients because of the difficulty of evenly distributing the cooled air throughout the entirety of the refrigerated space.